EF provides updates on high school renovations

Work will continue after school lets out for the summer.

Elizabeth Forward administrators discussed the progress of Phase 1 and 2 of the high school renovation project at a meeting Wednesday.

Dave Macioce, clerk of works for the district, told the school board that masonry is going up in preparation for steel erection starting March 24.

Macioce added that crews are also going to install underground plumbing in the boiler room hopefully next week, the auditorium footers are around 80 percent complete and utilities work is coming up.

Work in classrooms and the cafeteria is being done at night so that classes aren’t disturbed during the day. This is to prepare to move on to other projects and to get ahead of summer work, including the outside facade.

“Right now, we’re hoping to expand that and get more guys on site so that will lessen our workload this summer,” Macioce said. “There are entire areas where we can’t get to right now, for instance, labs and so forth.

“We are going to be touching every part of that building this summer. The goal is to try to minimize that amount of work by putting more guys on night shift right now.”

Superintendent Keith Konyk said teams are working to develop plans for graduation as well sports practices heading into the start of the next school year.

They are also waiting on a schedule update and timeline for when Phase 1 of the project will be completed. Progress has been slowed by extreme winter weather these past few months.

“We had a week of good weather, and once they get the steel up, they will be stacking more trades in there and get that updated and give you a more defined timeline,” Macioce said.

Board members also talked about renovation motions next week that they are planning to vote on, including approval of a proposed agreement with Fahringer, McCarty, Grey, Inc. for land planning and civil engineering services for Phase 2 of the project, which is $59,000 for engineering services. The Phase 2 project is around $113 million overall.

Macioce said for Phase 2 they are finalizing grating plans for the barrier around the building as well as a bus lane in front of the new addition, relocating some utilities and more.

“In addition to that, they’re going to give us some generic field drawings should the board elect to develop any of the fields that we are now doing the site preparation for,” Macioce said. “That would entail some additional storm drainage, some stormwater management.”

Estimates for some of the Phase 1 engineering services came in cheaper than originally anticipated, so builders want to move some of those funds over to the Phase 2 engineering work.

They also discussed the balance of Phase 1 additions and site improvements, which is $7,325,000, as well as commissioning, testing and balancing for the additions in Phase 1.

Konyk said this contract was awarded in July 2024 to Lugalia Mechanical Inc. and was separated into two bids while the school was awaiting more than $1 million in Public School Facility Improvement grant money. It not classified as emergency grant money status because the fire happened prior to when the emergency status was.

So the school district cannot back charge people, and it had to wait to award the bid to Lugalia before it is up for approval next week, according to Konyk.

School board member Megan Ferraro asked about some of the items they are spending on and was confused why there was money going into possible field designs when that wasn’t in the original Phase 2 budget. The proposal would involve turfing the high school fields.

“I am just trying to figure out what is Phase 1, what is Phase 2 exactly because Phase 1 and Phase 2 at the beginning of this were defined differently,” she said. “When you talk about savings, it’s just sitting with our district. That doesn’t mean we have to spend it on more engineering services. We can use it for something else.”

Macioce explained that the board cannot separate the original Phase 2 work from a possible field renovation and that the project is on the bid form as an alternate, which means the board can choose whether to do it.

He added that bidding engineering designs for the field as an alternative allows the district to hold that alternative for a period of time after it is awarded to give the district time to get grant money.

“That way it’s a totally separate number, and that way, if you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to do it,” Macioce said. “You can award the building contract, and be done, but at least you have the design if you want to do it at some point after that, you have those documents indicating what you want to do and then you don’t have to go back and reengineer those fields later on.”

However, if they want to go after grant funding and do the project down the line, they would have to include it early on in their engineering plans.

But if they want grant funding, and want a way to pay for the fields down the line, they would have to include it now in engineering designs.

“I think what you are missing is that the Phase 1 part of the field was just the rough end of grass,” said school board member Travis Stoffer. “What he’s referring to is that (Phase 1 work) does not meet the standards required for a turf company to come in. What he is referring to is the prep work now that it needs to turn that grass, a flat level playing field, into a level playing field that now a turf company will come in and you can actually decide what you actually want to put down on that field.

“This engineering company already saved us thousands of dollars, so if they saved us on that, if we come in with what they are saying, we will still make out. They already saved us this much money. Who said they aren’t going to do that again in the second part?” Other board members argued that since they came in under budget for Phase 1 engineering planning and designs, they can put it into the same for Phase 2, but they do not have to. Phase 1 and Phase 2 civil work, which isn’t the engineering and design phase, are totally separate.

“So now Phase 2, those savings are ours. That’s not related to the emergency status,” Konyk said. “Those are savings that we have realized, just through the process. Now it is ours and can help pay for Phase 2, even though they are separate. Phase 1 and Phase 2 civil work are very separate. They are completely separate, they will be paid for separately.”

Board members said investing in plans and designs now, even if they do not go after the field project, will help them get grants. School board president Thomas Sharkey argued that the beginning field engineering is just a small part of the engineering budget.

“I don’t understand, Megan, when you say this, because we just got $5 million grant money,” Sharkey said. “These guys have come to us for more. Why is it not worth that money to go after grant money for our kids? To me, it is. It absolutely is.”

Ferraro stated that there are bills to pay first, and Sharkey said there is a plan to pay the bills, and there is an opportunity to go after more money, so why not go after it and have these plans in place so they can get the funding.

Konyk said when he filled out the first grant, the requirements included showing that they are ready to move forward and have a plan in place.

“If you don’t do that and you are not prepared, then you cannot get that money. It can be a portion of the project and it doesn’t have to be defined. My point is that we have to go after better things, and that’s what we did when we went after the grant money, and we got it, and we are going to continue to do that,” Sharkey said. “If we don’t go after it, we’re not going to get it, and you have to spend some money to go after these grants. In this community, in this district, these kids deserve better, and that to me, spending that money is well spent if it gives us the opportunity to go after the money for the district and the community.”

In other business:

• The board will also vote on a possible women’s wrestling team next week as well as Keystone exam schedules and educational conferences for school officials.

• The League of Innovative Schools will visit the district March 27. Educators from across the country will be touring EF schools, and they last visited the schools 11 years ago.